Busted in Georgia

Busted in Georgia

It’s about 1 AM, on a Sunday. I’d been on the road for nearly 5 hours. I was in central Georgia, just south of Macon, returning home after attending a friend’s wedding in Nashville and I was hungry so I got off the Interstate and pulled into a popular roadside restaurant.

The menu featured an “everything” breakfast –“Midnight Special” the menu said–3 eggs, a waffle, bacon, sausage potatoes, coffee, juice, etc for $8.99. Being somewhat health conscious, I asked if I could substitute the 3 eggs for 2. I ordered them scrambled.Except for a lone guy at the counter, I was the only customer.

When the waitress arrived with the meal, she also dropped the check on the table, and as I took my first bite, I glanced at it–and it was for $11.80, not anywhere NEAR the advertised price by a long shot, so I called the waitress over and asked her to explain the discrepancy on the bill. “You ordered the meal with 2 eggs, not three”, she said, “so you got charged the ‘per-egg’ price.” I was incredulous.

“You mean that you are charging me MORE for LESS???” I asked.

“You got it”, she replied, and walked away…

“Miss”, I asked, “why not scramble me another egg then, and charge me the amount indicated on your menu???”

“HELL, no” she said, and she turned her back to me.

I took another bite, then decided that I was not going to take this insolence, so I told her that the meal was not acceptable and that she should do it over, which she didn’t even acknowledge. At all times I was calm, mellow and polite, figuring that this was some sort of weird, middle-of-the-night Georgia aberration. I asked to speak to a Manager, but she said there was no manager available at this time of night, so I asked for the manager’s name and she refused to give it to me. Then I asked where the HQ of the company was located, intending to call them to complain to a higher power, but she said she didn’t know where it was, sorry.At this juncture, she had began YELLING at me, loudly and announced that “…just because I pulled up here in my fancy-ass car (my G35 Coupe, parked just 20 feet away outside the window) doesn’t mean that I can push working-class people around”.

Wow.

So, I got up and went to the payphone to look up the company’s address, intending to file complaint when I got home. As I rounded the corner to get to the phonebook, I saw the only other customer in the place talking to someone on it, and when he saw me he hung up the phone and started to nervously explain that he was “only calling his wife, that’s all”, ,and he quickly split.(Later, found out that he was the dishwasher). I smelled a rat, so I went back to the register and paid the check, asking for a receipt. The snotty waitress, who could plainly see the full platter at my table, asked in a voice dripping with sarcasm, if I “…enjoyed my meal…” as she handed me my change.

Before I could turn to go, the parking lot filled with police cars, three of them, lights flashing, and a SWAT team of 4-5 small town cops swarmed the place. As they entered the restaurant, she pointed to me, said, “That’s him”, and I was pushed up against the wall and held by the back of my neck as another cop patted me down and put handcuffs on me. Then they forced me from the place and threw me into the back of a cop car. I glanced back and saw the waitress, hands on her hips, beaming.I was under arrest for causing a public disturbance. No one wanted to listen to my part of the story. I was hustled to the police station, about a mile from the restaurant, and I sat in an interrogation room for about ten minutes. A cop came in and began to question me. I explained what had happened, showed him my receipt and he said he remembered seeing an untouched breakfast on my table. He offered coffee and listened to my story.The dishwasher had called them and had told the cops that I was “raising hell and causing a lot of trouble” (even though, sensing trouble, I had deliberately kept my anger in check and had NEVER raised my voice), but the cops reacted as though that was indeed the case and sent out half of their force to put me down. He was actually a pretty nice guy, and after a few minutes he decided that arresting me was not necessary. Another cop drove me back to the restaurant and we both discovered that the waitress who had caused all the trouble had left. The cop apologized, and the other waitress, who was the only person in the place now, also offered an apology. “You didn’t do anything, so you don’t need to apologize”, I told her as I got the missing waitress’ name. Then I left.

It was 3 AM when I got into my fancy car and departed Georgia as hungry as when I landed there.